1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally concerns traffic reporting. More particularly, the present invention relates to the use of crowd sourced data and other sources of traffic data to provide traffic reports, maps, and forecasts.
2. Description of the Related Art
The rapid worldwide growth in mobile phone traffic has corresponded to a rapid increase in smartphone use. Smartphones are expected to overtake the number of feature phones by the end of 2011. With a smartphone, a consumer may utilize an assortment of applications to obtain a variety of useful real-time information including traffic information.
Current traffic reporting applications rely on traditional traffic sources such as public sector and private entity sources. These applications typically do not consider crowd sourced data that can provide updated or real-time traffic data not otherwise available from traditional sources. One mobile application, called “Waze” (available from Waze Ltd.), automatically collects traffic data and road condition information from users as they drive. “Waze” relies primarily on crowd sourced data to present updated traffic information to users of the application. “Waze,” however, does not consider traditional traffic sources when presenting traffic information to its users.
There is a need in the art for traffic reporting technology that leverages a variety of traffic data, including crowd sourced data, to generate more accurate and reliable traffic reports, maps, and forecasts.